Surveys to Make Money: Tips for Identifying Legit Survey Companies

The thought of surveys to make money is likely to appeal to a number of folks. After all, who would not love getting paid simply to answer a few basic questions in regard to their habits and overall lifestyle?

Most of you must already be aware of the firms that run focus groups. They do this in order to test fresh and upcoming products, different services, as well as other potential ideas. Thus, being a potential consumer, your opinion is worth more than you might comprehend.

However, this industry too has plenty of scammers and thieves who are constantly lurking around wanting to take benefit of unsuspecting individuals.

In the past, the idea is companies conducting surveys on the web was most likely a scam. This is due to the fact that most of the top brands as well as companies weren't ready to look over the internet to conduct their market research. However, the scenario has changed a lot since then and more and more companies are utilizing the power of the World Wide Web to get responses from prospective consumers. The reliable firms are getting rid of most scams, however, they do exist even in the current time. In addition, scammers also have all types of models to copy in order to appear like a reliable company!

As a result of this, it has become a big challenge to spot these scammers and differentiate them from companies that truly do market research and pay customers for their opinions.

In this post, we will be offering some easy to follow tips that will help you identify the difference between a reliable survey company and a scam company.

Types of Surveys to Make Money Scams:

Surveys to make money is not a bad idea to earn some money however it is crucial to stay cautious all the time. Typically, you may come across 2 kinds of scam survey websites:

Websites that simply pitch you unrelated services and products.
Websites that ask for money before you are able to take any paid survey.

They also have a tendency to lure customers with hidden riches via paid surveys. To begin with, they earn cash off you as soon as you register for additional services or products. Next, they force the users to pay for these.

The ones which ask for a payment before you can join are identical to one of those “work from home” scams. These are some of the most common scams spread across the web. The promise you of “easy work” when you purchase their “startup” bundle. In both of the above-mentioned cases, scammers tend to take advantage of a user's personal info that they might have offered.

Making side income through paid surveys:

Next, you need to know how real market research actually works.

A popular brand requires market research or focus groups that are not that economical when doing from person to person since focus groups tend to pay around 100+USD for around half an hour of work to every single participant. Thus, you can get an idea of the amount paid by the company on each research. On the other side, taking online surveys can be much more economical!

Due to this reason, companies look to appoint certain sites that can send out paid surveys to those with come under a specific demographic range (total income, age, geographic location, marital status, etc.). Hence, you have firms with the adequate business for running their own (such as Swagbucks) & you also have small firms that try to fill in the gaps.The 2nd tier companies most likely are those you encounter all across the web.

In a few cases, a website may only carry out paid surveys. Such sites are likely to be the ones that are closest to big brands. Talking of other sites, you will find the “point earning” system that is available for users for tasks such as “watching videos”, “reading email” or “playing games.”

One of the issues when it comes to market research is it can be quite an unpredictable area for the ones who are participating in the surveys (i.e., you) since big brands may not always look for your feedback. Due to this, a number of folks may not receive surveys as they would expect. Still, you may be able to accumulate some side income doing this work. Meaning, you will be able to pay some bills & get some extra assistance financially.

Scam Survey Industry: How It Works?

The primary concern is that scammers are likely to take advantage of your need for cash and say that they will forward plenty of paid survey opportunities to your email inbox once you sign up. This is close to impossible. They make such promises simply because they want a maximum number of folks to register for their paid packages.

Once the user signs up for these packages. Guess what happens next? They look for ways to make money off the users directly, instead of earning cash from brands conducting surveys by making you respond to the survey offers.

Some of the ways they make money off you include:

Sending you various types of offers. These comprise sweepstake entries (add your zip as well as email id for an opportunity to get Apple iTunes gift voucher!).

They may also send you some emails regarding free samples or another identical bribe. This is simply to get the user to enter their email address. They make anywhere between $1 to $3 for each sign up they get from countries like the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Most of the reliable survey companies have developed a whole ecosystem surrounding the survey offers for providing the users something to make money in the event they do not have any surveys available for the users at a particular point of time. For instance, you can visit companies such as InboxDollars and Swagbucks that offer you a number of ways for earning points in case you are currently ineligible for any surveys.

The primary difference you must identify is that a scam website may immediately hit the users with all types of offers instantly after they register and may not even offer you any suggestion that says you may get something from it. Reliable companies tend to provide a point system. For example, you may need to sign up for an offer to earn 500 points in credit.

When it comes to scam survey sites, the participant is, in fact, the product.

Stay aware of impersonators:

In a number of cases, you will also find the company name is actually legit. However, the individual you may be emailing may be a scammer. In such cases, a scammer may pretend as if he/she is working for a trustworthy survey firm!

Identifying such cases is quite hard however as long as you are asking suitable questions and doing the right research, it should not be a big deal. You may also directly get in touch with the company to know whether the person is, in fact, real & working for them.

Trust your inner voice:

It is always difficult to know who is right and who is wrong when you're considering surveys to make money. You can look at the BBB rating of a specific company, and know if they have any negative ratings from previous participants. In addition, you also want to know the nature of each of these complaints you may encounter on the internet. To given you an example, Swagbucks, which is one of the leading paid survey sites has received an A+ rating during the past three years. Also, it has 114 complaints from some of its members. This may appear a lot however when you take into account their current user base, it certainly looks quite impressive overall.

Identify red flags:

Avoid paying any cash in advance. This is a big red flag, you must avoid paying any fees simply to participate in any paid surveys. Reliable survey companies pay plenty of cash for growing their rosters as the more individuals they've got, the better they're able to fill the demographic gaps. Thus, no company would request a user to pay simply to participate in a survey.

Avoid providing your SSN, complete address or credit card details. The survey company has no desire to get any such info from the participants. Mostly, they would ask your general demographic info such as gender, age, city code, number of members in your family, etc.). No legit company would ask for your entire address and definitely not a person's SSN or credit card details.

Know what's mentioned in their privacy policy. Reliable survey companies tend to list all the important things in their privacy policy & make it easily available to all the participants. If you encounter a site that makes it challenging to locate a privacy policy, try to move on to the next site.